How to Create a Photo Gallery

Like many people out
there, you may want
to create a web site
to show off your
photos of friends,
family, vacation,
wedding, etc. Well,
this small tutorial
will show you how to
create a photo
gallery and upload
it to the Internet.

IrfanView is an
image editor that
allows you to create
a photo gallery for
free. There aren't
a lot of fancy
options but the
program is pretty
easy to use.

Save the
photos you want
to include in
the gallery in a
folder on your
hard drive. You
may want to
create a
separate folder
for this.

Open
IrfanView.

Press T
on the keyboard
to launch the
thumbnail
window.

In the
thumbnail
screen, go to
Options > Set
Thumbnail
Options.

Under
Thumbnail
quality, select
the Use Resample
box.

Under
Thumbnail size,
choose the
desired size for
the thumbnail
images that
IrfanView will
generate. 80x80
or 100x100 is a
good size to
use.

Click OK
to exit the
Thumbnail
options.

In the left
pane of the
Thumbnails
window, navigate
to the folder
where you placed
your photos and
wait for
IrfanView to
generate the
thumbnails. It
only takes a few
seconds.

Arrange the
size of the
thumbnail window
to reflect how
you want your
Web page
thumbnails
arranged.

Go to
Options > Select
all.

Go to File >
Save selected
thumbs as HTML
file. A browse
window will
appear. Navigate
to the
destination
folder you
selected in Step
3 and click OK.

After you've created
your photo gallery,
you still need to
find a web hosting
provider and upload
(save) the HTML
files and images so
your gallery can be
viewable on the web.

You can either
choose a free hoster
like Geocities.com (not
recommended
due to poor
stability of free
web site providers)
or you can register
your own dot com
name and show off
your cool photo
gallery to your
friends and family
via
YourOwnAddress.com.

Creating a Photo Gallery on a WordPress Website

Thanks to WordPress, creating photo galleries is so much easier if you use this platform. There are a handful of plugins that you can use. For example, the NexGEN Gallery is a popular one that is fully loaded with features.

You can upload batches of images and manage your galleries with ease. There's even a feature that allows you to add watermarks to your images! How cool is that? This is probably one of the most flexible plugins around and it won't cost you a dime!